Ryan ‘The Brickman’ McNaught was injured while building the Jurassic World exhibit: “One of the dinosaur’s teeth ripped into me”

By Fleur Michell

With dinosaur mania about to roar its way across the globe with the June 9 movie premiere of Jurassic World Dominion, the dino craze is already underway here in Australia.

Currently the Jurassic World by Brickman exhibit at Sydney’s Australian Museum is wowing both big and small kids alike with its supersized LEGO® dinosaurs, following its successful Melbourne debut.

Ryan McNaught – aka Brickman from LEGO Masters – is the brains behind the exhibit which took a team of 30 people more than two years to construct.

Featuring a range of incredible super-sized beasts, more than six million LEGO bricks were used and as many parents would relate to, there was notable LEGO injury during the build of the exhibit.

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Here Ryan gives us the lowdown on Jurassic World and shares his top advice for budding LEGO builders.

How exactly did you transform LEGO bricks into the dinosaurs in the exhibit?

Through a number of different ways. Sometimes it’s twice as much work to map something out on a computer, so we often draw and sketch our ideas. Others are meticulously planned out within an inch of their lives. The Baryonyx is over 4.8m long and made up of 102,317 bricks. It took 790 hours to put together. There’s a lot of work involved!

The exhibition premiered in Melbourne first – how did it then move to Sydney?

Very carefully on six semi-trailers! Obviously, you can’t transport a giant T Rex on a truck, so we deconstructed each model into large sections which we then put together again.

What’s the reaction been like from visitors?

Incredible. This the biggest exhibition my team has ever made. We’re so proud of showing exactly what can be achieved just with little LEGO bricks.

Any mishaps in the construction?

Yes – I did sustain an injury. I got up too quickly from a build and one of the dinosaur’s teeth ripped into me when I turned around too fast. The number one rule working around LEGO is to always wear good shoes. Everyone knows how painful LEGO can be when you step on it!

What skills does playing with LEGO help develop in kids?

Apart from developing physical coordination and dexterity, it also teaches kids that it’s okay to fail and try again. It’s also very mathematical and is a great puzzle solver. If you talk to any architect, industrial designer, engineer, really anything STEM related, they’ll all usually say they played with LEGO as a kid.

What’s the appeal of LEGO for adults?

Well, it’s just fun! Most people think LEGO is just for kids but as we’ve seen with LEGO Masters it’s still popular with adults. As adults the last thing we should do is forget about playing. It’s okay to be creative and take your mind off things.

Have you always played with LEGO?

I got my first LEGO set at three and loved it up until 13. Then, like a lot of kids, I stopped playing with it when I reached high school, and didn’t play with it again for nearly 20 years. But when my twin boys came along 14 years ago, I didn’t have any choice – I was back playing with LEGO again. My mum had kept most of my LEGO from when I was a kid and said to me after they were born, here’s all your old junk back. I said – I remember this! That piqued my interest again.

How exactly did you become a LEGO master?

Back in 2008 I was working in IT at a media company. At that time LEGO had just released something to help kids in school get into robotics. Only thing is it was really hard to use and impossible to figure out. I wrote a piece of software which allowed you to control your robotic system with an iPad. Someone put it on the internet and the people at LEGO said, ‘Oh that’s really cool, let’s do some stuff together’. It then went from there – It wasn’t even my idea to reach out to them!

When did you start thinking about LEGO as type of sculptural art form?

Actually 10 years ago I entered the Archibald Prize with a type of portrait I made out of LEGO of builder Daniel Grollo of Grocon. A LEGO ‘building’ of a builder. A lady at the Archibald said, ‘What is this nonsense LEGO isn’t art’ and rejected it. I think a LEGO entry might get a different reaction today.

You’re one of only 21 LEGO certified professionals in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere – what do you actually do?

Basically, I do exhibitions, work on LEGO Masters and also experiment with a whole lot of stuff to see what else we can do with LEGO. All the masters are very different. Beth Weis in Chicago uses it to teach maths, Sean Kenney uses it to design animals for art purposes. Meanwhile I’ve been working on dinosaurs.

Finally, what’s the ultimate LEGO model you’d like to make?

For the last 10 years my retirement plan has been to sail around the world in a yacht. I don’t know if I’ll ever own one, so maybe I just need to make a LEGO one!

To find out more about the Jurassic World by Brickman exhibit, visit Sydney’s Australian Museum.